ial; and Baptista Mantuanus, who flourished in the fifteenth century, might well exclaim—

Heu, male transfertur senio cum induruit arbor!

After the revival of learning in Europe, Gardening, and, in some sort, Arboriculture, were among the useful arts first studied: But the rudeness of those early attempts at the former gave no earnest of the excellence, which it was afterwards to attain. It is a popular error to suppose, as is done by some, that our rectilinear gardens, our formal avenues, and elaborate Topiary works were borrowed from the Dutch, after the accession of King William. On the contrary, they belong to a far earlier day. They were accurate transcripts, derived from antiquity, of the Roman garden, as we find it admired by Cicero, and described by Pliny, in the most polished ages of the empire. They were the style of garden first brought to Britain by the Romans; and it prevailed universally in England, as we learn from both Hentzner and Plott, in the days of Queen Elizabeth.

The Removal of large Trees has been practised in Europe for nearly two centuries; and it is more than a hundred and fifty-years, since it was introduced into England. It seems to have come into vogue among the great and powerful,

*NOTE X.

sometimes for the purpose of concealing a defect in their formal gardens, or, perhaps, for supplying or prolonging a favourite vista. But it was, for the most part, a mere display of expense and labour, adopted without plan, and executed without skill or science.

Among the earliest and most successful planters, on a great scale, was Count Maurice of Nassau, who figured as Governor of Brazil in 1636, when that settlement was in the hands of the Dutch. This prince was a man of taste and elegance, for the age in which he lived; and he adorned his palace and gardens there, with a magnificence worthy of the Satraps of the east. Gaspar Barlæus, one of the best poets of his time, is the historian of the expedition; and he has given the narrative in a style, that, on some occasions, will bear a comparison with the delineations of Livy or Tacitus.

The governor's residence was upon an island, formed by the confluence of two rivers, which are called, by Barlæus, the Capevaribis, and the Biberibis, and was named Friburg. Before the Prince commenced his improvements, as the historian informs us, it was a very hopeless subject ; a dreary, waste, and uncultivated plain, without a tree or bush to shelter it; and, in a word, equally worthless and inattractive. Here, notwithstanding, he erected a splendid palace, and laid out gardens

around it, of extraordinary extent and magnificence. In the arrangement of the buildings, salubrity, tranquillity, and horticultural ornament, were all studiously and tastefully combined. The choicest fruits of a tropical climate, the Orange, the Citron, the Ananas, with many others unknown to us, solicited at once the sight, the smell, and the taste; while artificial fountains of water, preserving the coolness of the air, and the verdure of the earth, rendered it a spot of peculiar attraction. In laying out the grounds also, such was the designer's skill, and the magnificent scale of the plantations and grass-plats, that no fewer than thirteen bastions and turrets flanked and defended the gardens, and promoted alike seclusion and security. And in order to complete at once, and give the Immediate Effect of Wood to so great a change on the face of nature, he removed, to the spot, no fewer than Seven Hundred Cocoa Trees of various sizes, of which some rose to thirty, some to forty, and some to fifty feet high, to the lowermost branches.

Of the success of the improvement last mentioned, no one, but the Prince himself, entertained the slightest expectation. Yet such, says Barlæus, was the ingenuity, as well as persevering labour displayed in the work, that the whole was accomplished with the most perfect success. Notwithstanding the immense size of the Trees, which were

of seventy and eighty years growth, they were skilfully taken up under the Prince's superintendance. They were then placed on carriages provided with wheels, and conveyed over a space of from three to four miles in extent, and ultimately transported on rafts, across both the rivers, to the shores of the island. On being planted there, so favourable were both soil and vegetation in that genial climate, that they immediately struck root, and even bore fruit, during the first year after their removal. Thus, adds Barlæus, the truth of the ancient adage was for once disproved, which says, that "It is impossible to transplant an old Tree with success." ""*

This, without doubt, was a singular example of successful Transplantation, and not less singular, than certain and well attested. It was a splendid display of the effects of physical strength and mechanical ingenuity, judiciously directed by absolute power; but it is useless as an example of either instruction or imitation. If we impartially subduct from it all that may fairly be attributed to a tropical climate, to the unlimited command of men and money in executing the work, and to the glowing colours of the historian in describing it, perhaps, there will remain little more, than what is both probable and natural, under ordinary circum

* NOTE XI.

stances. Barlæus, beyond his general elogium on the great ingenuity, gives no account of the details of the process. Indeed, he does not appear to have been very conversant with the subject of Wood, from the wonder expressed by him, at the natural appearance of fruit in the first season; as any gardener could have predicted the probability of the phenomenon, during the first year, together with the certainty, during the second, of its not taking place.

Evelyn, although with no great accuracy, narrates the same story of Count Maurice, and adds, that instances of the practice, little less successful, had occurred in Europe. He states, that, about the middle of the same century, M. de Fiat, a Mareschal of France, removed huge Oaks in this way, at the Chateau de Fiat.* The Elector Palatine, about the same time, also transplanted a number of great Lime Trees, from one of his forests near Heidelberg, to the slope of a hill, in view of the palace. Midsummer, it seems, was the singular time selected for the work, and De Son, a Frenchman, and “ an admirable mechanician,” as Evelyn records it, managed the execution. The soil of the hill (according to De Son's account given to Evelyn himself), consisted of " a dry, reddish, barren earth," which probably, with us, might have been

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* Silva, Vol. I. p. 102.